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<title>The Shield of Echidna by landofspaceandrainbows (cereus)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440965">The Shield of Echidna</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereus/pseuds/landofspaceandrainbows'>landofspaceandrainbows (cereus)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck, The Iliad - Homer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous Relationships, Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore - Freeform, Crafting Porn, Crafts, Description Porn, Gen, Graphic Description, LOFAF, Land of Frost and Frogs, Mystery, Occult, Occult symbology and themes, adventure &amp; mystery, mainly just gen at this point</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:28:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereus/pseuds/landofspaceandrainbows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>But down in her skirt pocket, where her hand rested, half-fisted something else burned....</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Egbert &amp; Jade Harley &amp; Rose Lalonde &amp; Dave Strider, John Egbert/Jade Harley/Rose Lalonde/Dave Strider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Cold Object</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>even the goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin,... beneath the secret parts of the holy earth.</em>
    <br/>
    <em>- Hesiod</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>She slogged her way up from the deeps of the mountain,  her green sneakers filling with slippery snow melt and gathering a dusting of ice crystals.   Just like the mountain’s volcanic rim above now was coated with a rime of snow and frost.  This whole thing felt about how this place looked, trackless and strange.  But according to her Denizen, the great Echidna below she now had what she needed, or at least one key among many?  Her attention was interrupted when a drop of chilled water dripped from an overhanging teal tree branch and soaked into her thin t-shirt, causing her shoulders to shiver and darkening the ghostly image on the front of the shirt to a darker shade of blue.</p><p>….</p><p>She reached for the handle of her ruined back door, when Dave’s voice crackled from her computer “Jade?”  a rush of distortion and static “are you there?”</p><p>“Yes!!!” she replied. a clump of ice falling away from her eye as it crinkled in a smile.</p><p>“I got something for you, check this code, it’s this delicacy called hot chocolate, i figured you probably never had it on whatever tropical hellmurder island you came from”</p><p>“I do know what chocolate is dunkass!!!  But that is very sweet.”</p><p>“Dunkass??  have you been talking to KK or TZ?  Nevermind, I don’t want to know, really.”</p><p>“hahaha….  Anyway how do you know it would be hot??”</p><p>“I scanned it when it was sizzling.  These codes make no damn sense honestly, but if anything about them were to make sense, they should carry the temperature data too.  anyway, hope you enjoy, heart!”, the computer read the last emoji out loud in it’s crackling voice.</p><p>"Heart" she whispered back, the computer recording it for sending even though Dave had logged out.</p><p>….</p><p>Later as she curled up on the remains of the bench, half uncovered from snow, the heat of a mug burned into her right hand as she hummed quietly.  But down in her skirt pocket, where her hand rested, half-fisted something else burned, deep and cold, the chill burrowing into skin leaving a faint crackling like lightning.</p><p>and she couldn’t help but wonder.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Shattered Sunlight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It dangled from a chain in her hand, a breeze of bitter cold wafted up from the strange <a href="https://thelandoflittlecubesandtea.tumblr.com/post/618226419681591296/a-quickie-prompt-from-flashfictionfridayofficial">cold object</a> as it hung, faintly vibrating with the icy chill.  Colors and shadows crawled within it, and as jade raised her arm higher and the object ascended, it passed into a beam of sunlight.</p><p>John squeezes her other hand, reassuring her as the shattered sunlight, razorblades dripping with the colors within the object, strike the frozen lake below.  He gasps and Rose and Dave let out a quiet half-breath as the razor-beams trace out the shape of a shield, concentric circles radiating outwards, on and in the lake ice.</p><p>
  <em>In the center of the shield, the rays of light traced the contours of the clouds of Skaia, hidden among them and peeking out is the rayed sun and for some reason…. two moons?  One limed in green and the other traced in pale, eye-vibrating pink by a shatterd beam of light…. the faint suggestion of the checkered fields of the battlefield below them all, burned just faintly, slightly into the surface by the beams of light, more a suggestion in the pattern than anything.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the next ring of the circle building itself below her in the frozen lake, there showed two great cities, buttresses, and spires reaching up in such perfusion it looked like a forest made of gems, in the great city of Prospit there was a celebration going on, perhaps a wedding?? the white king and queen holding hands and bowing their heads together, eyes narrowed in slits of joy.  And a great court of law, and along the edges, a relay race? a letter passed on to one small, skinny, lanky figure barely visible compared to the crowd elsewhere, with a bag over her shoulder.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the city of Derse, the light carved deep it’s shadowed streets, jade’s eyes widened at the sight of drawn daggers and swirling cloaks catching them in defense here and there.  Elsewhere there was a hatemarriage, the black king present, not visibly smiling but somehow relaxation and pride showing in his stance.  A pair of lovers, one white and one black, trysts…. The great Derse choir wanders, and the beams of light carve the ice deep and subtle, over and over, to show the curves and subtleties of the shadows that would receive the usual silence and their song.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In a ring beyond the two great moon cities, yellow and purple, there is another ring,  a salamander farming mushrooms, a stream of lava being directed into a clockwork gear mold and a tool mold by some crocodiles, iguanas tending a poinsettias surrounded by waiting hummingbirds, turtles carving stone and tending to a cockle in a sandy dip.  A great herd of magnificent horses is guarded against a gear-chested lion by two dogs, snarling and fierce, with wings on their back and swords in their mouths.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A ring of mushroom orchards….</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The next ring... a slightly blue beam traces out the silhouettes of eight humans and groups of trolls and carapacians, heels kicked up dancing in the whirl of space.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And beyond, surrounding and embracing all, the horroterrors arise and fall in the great sea of the furthest ring…… </em>
</p>
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